


all alright

by littlelionvanz



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 05:59:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2762246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelionvanz/pseuds/littlelionvanz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A gift is left for Adam and he can't stop thinking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all alright

**Author's Note:**

> holy poop its been like 90 years since i've written anything for them. song comes from ["all alright" by sigur ros](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmQuIsDnQ3k)

Adam didn’t have to guess. He never wondered for a second where it came from. Of course it stood apart in his room. Among the dust and decay of the ancient apartment at St. Agnes Church where he was most graciously given a living space, sat a crisp white, almost unused pillow on his ratty mattress. The bed was still  unmade as he had left it early that morning, and the pillow casually laid there half under his blanket. Adam let his feet carry him to the mattress, too tired to acknowledge the warm burn in his chest and why it bubbled up when he saw the pillow.

He kicked off his boots, pulled off his oil-smeared coveralls and laid down, pulling the new pillow onto his chest. The bone-deep ache of a long workday making him almost forget how uncomfortable his bed really was. With no springs nor spinal support, it was basically glorified padding on the floor. He brought the pillow to his nose, arms closing around the air-softness of it. It was truly the softest pillow he'd ever had. There were creases in the linen from use; he wondered if Ronan slept on it, if it appeared from a dream beneath his head. He waited for the mist and moss to pull him to sleep because surely this was a casual dream creation. Cologne, a faint suggestion of some sort of hard liquor, the familiar hint of leather that must have been from wristbands. _Ronan’s_ wristbands. This was Ronan’s pillow. Of course it was still in almost new condition because when did Ronan sleep, really.

Adam wanted to sleep. _Needed_ to, was more the word. He couldn't keep going with 10 hour shifts and three of hours of sleep, he knew it. But everything in his head was a jumble. The head that gifted him with the intelligence to keep decent enough grades as also the brain that cursed him with the unwanted need to over-analyze everything. This included. But for the first time, and for which Adam couldn’t blame his exhaustion, he didn’t even bother entertaining the thought that thinking of Ronan was a burden he had to deal with. Thinking of Ronan made his cheeks burn and chest feel like it was caving open. With every deep breath of the pillow, letting the smell of Ronan Lynch fill him completely, he couldn’t stop thinking of it all.

The miraculousness of dream-creating. Defending him from Robert Parrish. Creating Matthew Lynch. Leaving lotion in his car for his chapped hands. Having everything at his feet, and sleeping on Adam’s floor. It couldn't have made sense unless Ronan loved him. Was _in love_ with him. Adam almost hated himself for thinking of it. Because who was he to be loved by something as awe-inspiring as Ronan.

Who was he, with makeshift furniture from trash, trash boy from a tin box in the dirt. Who was he, with holes in his sweaters and too-thick of an accent. Ronan called him a magician but he didn’t feel magical - he felt constantly on the border of sanity and on the losing team of the game _real or not real_. Who was he to be loved and wanted and adored by anyone much less Ronan.

Perhaps didn't _want_ to be wanted. Or wasn't letting himself want.

But maybe he was wrong. Maybe he wanted Ronan to be in love with him out of some narcissistic need for affection. Because Blue dumped him and Adam was projecting the idea of being wanted by Ronan in the way Blue couldn't give him. Surely that was a plausible explanation.

But Ronan was giving Adam more affection than Blue had. It was different. He was unknowable. But Ronan was seeing him. _Knowing_ him - the weird little things like chapped hands and a sore neck. Even stupid mix tapes (which were meant to be a joke, Adam knew), but surely that meant something too.

He thought about Blue. About how he wanted her, as if to scientifically compare the two situations and find a reasonable explanation or theory or to dispel it entirely. But Blue’s face kept turning into the sharp corners of Ronan’s jaw. The softness of her cheeks became sloped and defined by hard cheekbones. The gentle skin of her shoulder turned to lean muscle and Adam’s face was running hot and this was so _stupid_. Because he didn’t want to want Ronan, this wasn’t apart of the equation.

But then why was he hugging that pillow so tightly.

The more he told himself he didn’t want to want Ronan, the harder he clutched the pillow to himself, breathed in the deep the smell of _him_. Closed his eyes and almost _wished_. But for what. For him. Or that the pillow was replaced with something more solid. He clung to that smell that seeped into him and made him think of how close he'd always been to Ronan; so close. Almost enough to touch. 

The understanding came in like a flood and it was by pure chance or divine intervention that there was a short knock on the door. It had to have been almost midnight so it could have only been once person. He bit his cheeks to contain emotion before it bubbled up.

“Come on,” he said, voice raspy for some reason. He meant to say _come in_. This might have actually been from the tired. Through the darkness, Adam saw the door creak open. Ronan, in looser fitting jeans and that one soft band tee with the cigarette burns in it, came in and closed the door with a quiet click.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Adam offered because he didn’t trust the silence.

“Can I ever?” Ronan said with a slight scoff in his voice. _Yes_ , Adam wanted to say. _Here with me._ But he didn’t.

As if normal routine, Ronan kicked off his shoes and sat down on the space next to Adam’s mattress. But it was normal, wasn’t it. Why hadn’t Adam noticed how normal and routine it was? He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Instead of laying in his own bed (undoubtedly more comfortable than Adam’s), Ronan chose to leave Monmouth in the middle of the night to travel across town to seek out the shitty apartment at the top of a church to sleep on the splintery floor next to Adam. Just because he couldn’t sleep.

How could Adam think that meant nothing?

He couldn’t say anything. But he moved over to the far end of his bed, which granted was that much room to begin with as the mattress was small. Just as Ronan meant to lay down, he saw the motion and froze. Adam could see how tense he was. _This_ wasn’t normal. _This_ didn’t happen. They'd never shared Adam's bed before and he found himself wondering if he ever would have minded if one day Ronan crawled in beside him and fell asleep. There had been a few occasions of waking up too close to the edge and Ronan's arm slung onto his stomach, but he'd never given it a thought. 

“Thanks for the pillow,” Adam then said softly because he realized that after everything Ronan and did and give him these last few months, he’d never thanked him. He started to feel bad. Ronan suddenly looked exposed or caught. Adam wondered if maybe he was going to deny the gesture entirely.

“Well yours is a piece of shit,” he then said after a pause.

Adam emphasized the space he’d left for Ronan, laying face first into the pillow watching him. Ronan tried to make it seem like laying on the mattress was a casual thing too. He didn’t move to lay under the blanket with Adam. Maybe that was a line they weren’t ready to cross yet. He folded his arm back behind his head to lay on it, staring at the ceiling. Eventually he closed his eyes, his breaths steadyAdam was laying, facing him but turned mostly onto his stomach.

It was a few minutes when Adam could tell Ronan still wasn’t asleep yet. When was he able to notice that across the darkness? He wasn’t moving, his eyes were closed. But Adam knew. Or maybe he hoped he was asleep too when he whispered:

“It smells like you.”

Adam could almost hear Ronan’s heartbeat thump a beat or two louder.

He didn’t look at him and Adam said then:

“I know, Ronan,” Adam slowly and all-too-consciously sought out his hand, laying on his side. Ronan jerked at the first touch of finger against wrist vein but he didn’t move. Adam slid his fingers into the grooves of Ronan’s and almost regretted it until he felt Ronan’s fingers slowly fold upwards. He didn’t know what else to say or do. What was he even trying to say?

_I know you like me and I think I like you too and I’m shit with words and feelings but I’m feeling a lot right now, Ronan Lynch._

He knew Ronan had to have felt their heartbeats match in a speedy unison, their wrists pressed together and it was probably the most connected to a human being that Adam Parrish had ever felt. It was overwhelming and he couldn’t let it go - this had to have been love right? Or something close to it, surely.

But then Ronan said, “I don’t care if you don’t love me back.” He said it sure and serious and almost casual or clinical - as if the words didn’t hold much meaning but of course Adam knew that was false. Suddenly it felt strange. The idea of not loving Ronan. When did he not? Had this feeling always been there? Brimming under the surface amidst stress and Cabeswater?

He said _love_ and something in Adam’s chest went boom.

A Ronan that wasn’t harsh or brash or cursing or sarcastically laughing was a scary, fragile thing. A thing not easily exposed to outsiders. Was Adam ever considered at outsider?

“I never cared,” he continued. “I just-”

“Just what,” Adam said, feeling bold.

Despite the pitch black of the room and against the dull glow of moonlight Adam saw Ronan turned his head. “I just wanted you to be okay.”

The words didn’t mean, _savior_ or _protector_. Though an Adam Parrish of another time would have taken it as such - had mistakenly faulted Gansey for this.

Coming out of Ronan’s mouth, Adam felt a surge. That surge made him push up on his elbow and lean over Ronan to kiss his mouth, all in one fluid motion with no room for second guessing or doubt. It was small and lingering press of lips and barely more than a peck. Their chests were touching and Ronan took in a sharp breath before Adam pulled away.

“What’d you do that for,” Ronan said, eyes still closed.

“Not sure,” Adam whispered, still lingering above him. Somehow his hand managed to lay on Ronan’s chest. “Guess I wanted to.”

Ronan opened his eyes, focusing them sharply on Adam’s. “Don’t fuck with me, Adam,” he warned.

The hint of pleading in his voice was almost enough to rip something in Adam’s heart.

Maybe he underestimated how badly Ronan wanted this. Maybe Ronan underestimated how bad Adam wanted it.

“I’m not,” Adam said. A long moment passed of intense staring before Ronan surged up to kiss him again.


End file.
